State and Supreme Court Verdict

You are here: Home » news section » opinions » Opinion on Killing of Manorama

E-Pao! Opinion - State and Supreme Court Verdict

By: Loya Maisnam *

The well verse story of 'who will police the police' in the state still strikes roaring beneath the psychopathic minds of the few people that in fact sees the downtrodden menaces of the present day government and fate of the generation.

The distorted wheel of the state government administration has unleashed the other second government to set the laws of antagonism which government labelled yet the laws has still rational to the civil society partly and partly like the Sicilian radical 'anarkhos', the term evokes the images of chaos, violence and lawlessness.

This is a story, something like the 0.9 Linux operating version which is not widely compatible in the violent uproar region like Manipur and its contiguous areas. A story of Supreme Court verdict, which has set lately on the last Friday (September 22, 2006), transforming the colour of police, which they had gained the fame of defaulted images to the civil society and from the nuisance of politicization.

Everyday has become a significant day, the black film of rouge over the law enforcers, so everyone could see the niggling policeman's story in the newspaper every morning; The issues of molestation & rape, fake-rape charge framing, taxing from the working class peoples, corruption, scandals, encounters, so and so from the constable to the top ranking officials.

None left to see the laws held in their hands, maintaining the law and order situation with the utmost mental tactics and empowered by the latest hi-tech weapons.

It is something like they do not have the moral discipline, human dignity, values, man's moral value, human rights, a man's right; it is something like they are lack of disciplines which they had to be learned from the beginning before they wore their 'khakis', it is something like they have forgot the law is not in their hands, it seems they forgot that the weapons they have is just to protect the civil society for a collective national security but not to turn the point toward the people; and moreover it seemed they need the ethics of the police morality should be learn categorically.

Now, we shall feel a little, the air of principles and morality of the police though it may take time, fortunately the credit has definitely goes to the retired BSF chief Prakash Singh who filed the PIL (public interest litigation) petition and implication furnished to the Supreme Court though the crying need of the urgent police reformation have been felt for decades.

The Supreme Court enlists the verdict for the police reformation as follows:

National Security Commission for selection of chief of central police organizations CBI, ITBP and CISF with the chiefs having a minimum tenure of two years.
State Security Commission to ensure insulation of police force from political interference.
Police Establishment Board (PEB) to decide transfers, postings, promotions, and other service related matters.
Police Complaint Authority (PCA) to look into accusations leveled against police. On separation of investigation and law and order duties, the court said: "The investigating police shall be separated from the law and order police to ensure to ensure speedier investigation, better expertise and improved rapport with the people."

Though these enhancements still gives opportunity to rectify the morality, disciplines, political interference free, and so on to the big cities, yet we can not ignore atleast in according to our state because there is some clause that definitely will give empower in the modification of the state's police and the department.

The rotten police images in the state still forecast the crying need of the police reformation for the reason that we have no police to police the police viciousness. In fact, with regards to policing the police in the state, I am not widely summarized that the recent article from Aya A. Shimray who wrote in the Sangai Express edition of August 29, 2006 but in short, it was a fantastic and categorically written express of the writer which always should not be left fold by everyone, I cheerfully uttered that my people must go with the article keeping with regardless to the psychopathic mind.

He ironically structurized the present day's self-style commandos of the state police department and any other uniformed men, who even do not understand the meaning of commando and his powerful Kalashnikov. The brutality, indecent behaviours, senseless tactics and torture to the innocent people to open the mouth wide to get the certain clues of the underground person, the feelings of self-pride by the power of his Kalashnikov rifles and khakis, and what not, the taxing of hefty bucks from the stalls and even from the rickshaw drivers everyday, these all are what Shimray relayed, the police story of the land where the unnamed bullets are raining underneath the disputed region.

Now, here goes the story of some unsung police issues unearthed, by then, as a part why the SC brought to ruled the verdicts for the police reformation:

1. Bihar

Satyendar Prasad Singh who was one posted as SP Chhapra, December 24,2005 and transferred on July 14, 2006 for the reason that he fell out with local JD (U) MLA.
DP Ojha who was served as DIG, Bihar June 2003 and later removed by December 2003 for the reason that had sanctioned reopening of cases against Siwan MP Md Shahabuddin.

2. Gujarat

Rahul Sharma ironically he was transfers 14 times in six years. Was posted as DSP Bhavnagar, February 16, 2002 and then transferred on March 26, 2002 for the reason that he fell out with Narendra Modi.
Himanshu Bhatt was posted as DSP Jamnagar, December 2002 and then transferred in March 2003.

2. Maharashtra

Arvind Imandar was posted as DGP Maharashtra was removed in 2002 after a long 36-year long in career for the reason that he refused to heed instructions of then home minister Chhagan Bhujbal.
Sanjeev Dayal was posted a Jt. Commissioner in-charged of administration in Mumbai was then transferred in 2002 for the reason that he had resisted Bhujbal's interference in police recruitment.

These are some extraction of the police humiliation that still insisted the SC in gaining a reformed in the police story. Apart from this political colonization of the policemen, there are also cases of the mafia story in police organization. Here the question to ponder is, how far this reformation will be attuned in the state like insurgency prone Manipur?

Would this police story and the ruled of SC's endorsed verdict to be applicable in the right way to reform the odds police story of the state? In this regard KPS Gill Ex DGP denounced that the total autonomy to the police is impossible and he opined that, has the Police Act, 1861, ever been implemented in letter and spirit anywhere in India?

He speaks out tagging the Naxalite problem in light, he question how the police, for instance will deal with the Naxalite problem without the political direction? These are the few questions like a handful of sand in a seashore.

Like wise in Manipur and any other insurgency prone states of northeast India, it is ironical that who is going to frame petition and accusation against the police actions? Because, the draconian inoffensive laws like Terrorist and Disruptive Act, Prevention and Terrorism Act, 2002, National Security Act and Armed Forces Special Power Act, 1958 are the acts that will proof and can counter the Supreme Court's ruling that has slated to be implemented by the centre and the states by the December 31, 2006.

Here is the list of reforms:

Officers, from DGP SHO to have fixed tenure of two years. Can be removed only on conviction in criminal cases.
Two police duties – investigation and maintaining law and order - must be separated.
State Security Commission to insulate police force from political interference. Ironically CM to head this.
Police Establishment Board to decide transfers, promotions.
Police Complaint Authority headed by a retired judge, to look into accusations against police.
National Security Commission, headed by Union home minister, to select chiefs of central police organizations.
DGP to be selected from three senior – most officers empanelled for promotion by UPSC.
Deadline of December 31 set for reforms. Centre and states to file compliance reports by then.

AK Doval, former Intelligence Bureau Chief, who is one of the most decorated officers, has also received the Kirti Chakra, speaks out and uttered the associate-ness of police and politicization by chronicles, the long saga of the police story and the politicization & political interference what he had pointed as colonial cop.

An outline extraction is being narrate as, concerned that political interference and politicization of police were eating into the vitals of civil society, on April 3, 1997, Indrajit Gupta, then Home Minister, wrote in a letter to chief ministers, " l have a feeling that if the political executive does not take the desire measures to bring about reforms, the may not be far when the judiciary may force such socially-desirable changes down it's throat ".

It is an irony that India, a vanguard of crusade against colonialism suffered colonial style of policing for six decades, the only change being that the white man was replaced by the brown. But the bigger irony was that in the world's biggest democracy, the change came, not through the legislature, but by judicial intervention.

He pointed out that the temptations of the post-independence elite to use this potent instrument to subserve its power interests were too strong to allow any change. Lacking political sincerely and will, scores of police commissions and committees failed to prevent use, misuse and abuse of the police machinery for the advantage of a select few at the cost of those who needed their help and protection most.

He further narrates that politicization of police manifests itself in diverse forms, the worst being interpretation and execution of law in a manner which favoured those in power and hurt those who are seen as adversaries. Over the years, the quest for "own people" and not the best people, contaminated the systems of recruitment, promotions, placements, etc. as politics started polarizing around caste and sectarian lines, police also couldn't remain insulated. Some districts saw more than half-a-dozen SPs in a year. He criticized that the SC decision will go a long way in correcting this distortion.

In such a situation, who will police the police still struck behind the SC verdict in the state Manipur. Many unsung dozens of police stories have been reckoned and buried in the chronicles of people's mental diary, which has beset as only a gift of trauma to the people of the state and still making the menaces by leaving the dark rouge in the mindset of the people.

Don't ever leave the storyline of the police reformation and the Supreme Court verdict, which the state has still time to give compliance for the implementation of the order. And, see how the reality bites with the fractured anarkhos government and how the society of a few lakh citizens backup to its positive responds.

Because we have almost seen that the politically, militarily and economically fractured state has a long way to go when the interpretation of law, morality and ethics comes as a learning topic in associates with the SC order of the police reformation.

It is to have believe that we have had come a long way underneath the burden of the ethnic cleansing, ethno nationalistic movements, hegemony, oligarchy, communal riot, and moreover along the transnational actions, we are bitterly beaten without a single word of internal and the collective security of the state.

Do we sometimes mind that whenever we unearth the unleashed of the state's astringently deteriorated multi-governmental leash administration which everyone has been intervened whenever flying high with Dove to unleash the dark cloud?

We're always be deemed to move not beyond and above the any judicial intervention, so it would be a tranquility that a closed encounter we're tend to cope the aftermath of the SC verdict.

Loya Maisnam,a Delhi based Freelance Journalist, writes regularly to e-pao.net
The writer can be contacted at [email protected]
This article was webcasted on October 4th, 2006

* Comments posted by users in this discussion thread and other parts of this site are opinions of the individuals posting them (whose user ID is displayed alongside) and not the views of e-pao.net. We strongly recommend that users exercise responsibility, sensitivity and caution over language while writing your opinions which will be seen and read by other users. Please read a complete Guideline on using comments on this website.